Little child lost
by Rie Brennan
Summary: Bones investigates when the remains of a small unidentified child are found.


**Little child lost**

Monday 6:10 am  
Bones is woken from a dream about her mother, they are playing in the yard surrounded by fall leaves, by the telephone ringing. Its Booth, "hey there you awake"  
"yes" replies still half asleep.  
" I'm at the park a jogger and his dog have stumbled upon the corpse of an unidentified child, decomposition has begun, so I would like you to come down recover the body, then work your magic with the squints OK Bones."  
" OK be there in about 20 minutes, and don't call me Bones."  
Temperance gets out of bed, goes straight to the kitchen and puts the coffee machine on; while the coffee is brewing she goes and takes a quick shower, then scrapes her hair back into a ponytail and gets dressed in her much loved khakis and t-shirt. Once dressed she grabs her mobile equipment bag, cars keys and much needed coffee, then heads out to her car.

Temperance is stunned when arriving at the crime scene she find herself engulfed in the sea of reporters, and parents with photos of their lost children, begging for answers. She kept her head down and heads of to meat Booth.  
"What's with all these people?" she asks  
"A story of a dead child is always a ratings booster, and the other people are parents who have a missing child, waiting to see if they will finally get some peace." Booth replies.  
Temperance "Here's some coffee thought you might need it, made just the way you like it, strong, black and sweet. Now what do we have"  
Booth " The jogger said that his dog ran off barking like mad, so he followed it to behind this tree, when he got here the dog was digging so he pulled the dog away and then got the fright of his life. The decomposing face of what looks like a small child half unearthed. He said he kept the dog back and then called the police. The soil around the body has been pretty messed up by the first on the scene officers taking a look. Oh and thanks for the coffee dear someday you will make someone a lovely wife"  
Temperance"Ha ha, carry on and you might end up wearing the next cup of coffee i bring you. I will call Zack and get him to help me to remove the body and collect any trace evidence the may have been left behind with the body."  
Booth "OK Bones and can you try and keep the body under wraps as the death of a child is a very delicate matter."  
Temperance" I know that, I'm not completely without human emotion you know" She turns away from Booth and starts calling Zack to request his help at the crime scene, explaining the delicate subject matter to him, she asked him to inform cam of what was going on and ask her to come and collect the body to take it back to the lab.

By the time Zack arrives she has already started excavating the body, very slowly small trowel full of soil at a time.  
Zach" Good morning what would you like me to do?"  
"Could you start sifting that pile of soil looking for any trace evidence left behind, and then collect various soil samples for Hodgins to work on when we get back to the lab, and then we should be ready to remove the body from the hole. Where is Cam?"  
Zack"She had to go and sort out the transportation for the body, and then was going to come straight here."  
They both got on with their work in silence trying to ignore the sound of weeping parents in the background, and trying not to get to emotional about the tiny body that lay in front of them all broken and lifeless. Just as they were placing the remains into a body bag Cam arrived in the coroners vans with 2 super-sized coffees in hand.  
Cam" Thought you might be needing these, you nearly done here?"  
Temperance" Yes we are just packing up now, and will follow you back to the Jeffersonian."

By the time Bones and Zack arrived back at the lab Cam has already got the body out on a table ready to be worked on. Bones goes straight to work on the body and Zack takes the samples that they had created to Hodgins. Temperance started to wash the body down before starting, then she started documenting the body. It was of a female child, between the ages of 3 and 5, and she was Caucasian. While the body was still intact, from the bin bag that it was wrapped in, the face had started to decompose probably from where and animal had tried to open the bag hoping to find something tasty to eat.

Cam "I'll take the body and you can focus on the skull, OK."  
Temperance carefully removed the skin surrounding the skull, removes the brain, and then took the skull and added it to a pot of boiling water to remove any remaining flesh. While the skull was getting clean she took the brain to Zack for him to examine.  
Zack "There was obviously some sort of blow to head; you can tell by this discoloration to this area, it was obviously quite a blow judging by the area that was affected. The child would have probably been knocked unconscious, put into a coma, or even have been killed by this amount of force being applied to the brain."  
Hodgins "From the soil samples and the bugs that you gave me I would say that the body has been there for about 2 months, other than that there wasn't any other trace evidence."  
Temperance "Thank you I will add your findings to the case file." With this she returns to the skull which is now free of any flesh, Temperance notices that there is an indentation in the skull, she molds the for later reference. While looking at the skull she also notices healed fractures of the skull, cheekbone and jawbones, this was unusual for such a small child to have so many old injuries. Temperance then took the skull to Angela so that she could give it a face.  
Angela "What do we have here." Temperance gave Angela all the details and left he to work her magic, she then went to check on Cam's findings.  
Cam "There are no obvious causes of death but I did find lots of old healed fractures, similar to those you would find in the victim of a road traffic accident." Bones explained that she had also found healed wounds.  
Cam "I'd say that we are looking at the body of someone that had been involved in a serious accident, or the victim of abuse." Cam's voice started to shake and she made her excuses and left the room, not looking directly at Temperance on the way out.

Booth walks into the lab and is brought up to date with all of the team's findings, he goes to the computer and starts inputting the info into the FBI's data base. Two possible matches appear, one is a 3 year old girl taken 2 months ago while her parents were sleeping in the room next door, and the other is a 3 years old girl, who disappeared from the garden of a foster family that she was staying with, also taken two months ago.  
Temperance "Do they have pictures of the children. And was the foster child a victim of abuse?"  
Booth "Yes one has brown eyes and green eyes, and the other has blue eyes and blond hair. As for the abuse I will have to get a court order to have her case fill open, I ask Caroline Julian is she can help us out."  
Temperance "While you are doing that I will go and see how Angela is getting on with the reconstruction."

When she arrives at Angela's office the reconstruction is complete, Temperance immediately recognize the face, that of the second little girl taken from the foster family's garden, but to be sure she asks Angela to add blue eyes and blond hair. Temperance's initial thought was right, she asks Angela for a second opinion just to be sure, Angela agrees it's definitely the second child.

Temperance "The victim is Emily Rose the little girl taken while playing in the garden. She was killed by a blow to the head, and if you find me a weapon I can match it to the mold I took from the skull."  
Booth "Emily was removed from her drug addicted mothers care after there was reports of neglect and physical abuse, she was then placed with a foster mother, who has since been closed down after reports surfaced of physical abuse to the children in her care."  
Temperance "What do children and family services have to say about this?"  
Booth "That the foster mom was checked out before being allowed to take children in, and that they do there best to ensure the safety of all children in their care, which is a very big task considering how many children they have in their care at any one time."  
Temperance "Well someone wasn't paying very good attention, as we have the body of a child who was supposed to have a better life after being taken away from her mother. Will they notify the birth mother?."  
Booth "Birth mom overdosed a few weeks after her daughter was taken into care. Some officers have gone to bring the foster mom in for questioning; do you want to join me in the interview?"  
Temperance "No I have a few loose ends I want to tie up."

Booth returns to the lab after the interview to give Temperance the details of what happened, he finds her on the phone arranging for a burial for little Emily.  
Booth "What are you doing Bones."  
Temperance "Children and family services have limited funds for these types of things, so I told them that I would arrange the funeral for once the body was released, it just felt like the right thing to do. She had such a troubled little life that I thought she should be given the chance to rest in peace. What did the foster mom say."  
Booth "That the child never stopped crying, and that she was a good person, but one night she couldn't't take it any more and she lost it. There was a baseball bat lying around in the kitchen, and without knowing what she was doing, she hit Emily in the head, the girl feel to the floor dead. After this she panicked wrapped the body in bin bags and buried her in the park near the climbing frame she loved. More like she was worried about not getting anymore kids in her care, so no government cheques to cash. She has been placed under arrest and is now going to have alot of time to think about what she did while awaiting trial for murder."  
Temperance "You are a parent Booth do you think she could be telling the truth about just losing it in the heat of the moment."  
Booth "No, for one thing her face never showed any emotion when talking about Emily, and for two sometimes it does get tough but that's part of the learning curve of being a parent, and I would never hit my child in temper, he means the world to me. What are you smiling at Bones?"  
Temperance "I love the way your face lights up when you talk about Parker, you are a great father."  
Booth "Was that a complement Bones, are you getting soft in your old age, or is it my sparkling personality."  
Temperance "None of the above can I not just be nice to you."  
Booth "It just that you never normally give me complements. The rest of the squints are going to the diner, I don't think any of them want to go home to an empty house just yet, will you be joining them?"  
Temperance "Not tonight I just want to go home and have a nice long bath, and relax."  
Booth knew that she wasn't going home to relax but left it alone, she would tell him in her own time what was bothering her. "OK see you tomorrow."

Temperance was sitting a the table looking at a photo of her family before her parents disappeared, thinking how happy they had been, and then thinking about her own time in care, how lost and afraid she had felt to be all alone with complete strangers, and that she had been lucky to have been rescued by her grandfather. What would have happened if she had stayed in care, would she be the person that she is today, would she still be alive, or would it have been worst to spend her life on the run and in hiding with her parents? Too many questions were floating around her head for her to relax, so she went to grab a beer, there was a knock on the door. When she opened it, there stood Booth "Thought you might want some company" he said with a smile. With this Temperance began to sob uncontrollably and fell into Booth's arms, he held her so tight that all of her worries disappeared out of her mind, and it was in this moment that she knew she would never feel alone again, that Booth would always be there, her knight in shining armor.


End file.
